Conventionally, there is a known surface-coated cutting tool including a base material and a coating film formed on the base material, in which a TiCN layer is included as the coating film.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2008-087150 (Patent Literature 1) proposes an attempt to improve wear resistance and chipping resistance by setting the atomic ratio of carbon to the sum of carbon and nitrogen at 0.70 to 0.90 as a composition of the TiCN layer.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2006-231433 (Patent Literature 2) proposes an attempt to improve the chipping resistance by providing a specific inclination angle distribution with respect to the crystal plane of the crystal grain of the TiCN layer.